Welcome back to Grade 4K

Almost 12 months ago I posted Welcome to Grade 4K. It's been by far the most popular of all my blog posts with 902 page views at the time of writing. Now it's time to welcome you back to Grade 4K for the 2012-2013 school year. Come on in and take a look around.

Before you come in, you might like to look at our bulletin board.
The two posters are about myself and Mr Dy. In a few weeks time the board will be covered with posters that the children have prepared about themselves.

I found these bright coloured foam stars while I was home in Oz.
The children had great fun decorating their own stars with markers and glitter glue.
Every child in Grade 4K is a star and is encouraged to shine as brightly as they can.

On your right as you walk in the door are two sets of shelves, divided into 24 boxes. Each child has his/her own box to store workbooks, homework folders and work-in-progress. It does take a little time getting books out for lessons, but as the children become more familiar with the books they get quicker.

Above the shelves (or cubbies as the children call them) is our Star Helper wall, the Kindness Box, and some posters encouraging the children to do their best all the time. I love the bright colours and the encouraging messages. The pile of folders on the end of the shelves are for testing. They give each child his/her own space, and it helps me know that the work I get on a test is the child's own work.

Four tables, six chairs at each table. Sometimes I really like individual desks, but I'm used to these now, and have learned to make them work well.

Foam mats make the tiled floor a little softer for sitting on, and add another spot of colour to the room.

Books, books, and more books! I love encouraging my students to read.

A new set of Go For Green pockets was needed this year due to a slightly larger class size, and I was delighted when the lady in our local copy shop produced the clear pockets that I've used this year. Students know their own number so names are not necessary, make this reuseable!

For some reason Mr Dy's desk is almost always much tidier than mine!
I love these language arts posters. I inherited them from the previous 4th grade teacher
and they are perfect for 4th graders, especially as we work on various aspects of grammar.

I was fortunate to get these two new whiteboards in place of the one I had previously.
The board on the left has the weekly homework plan on it, which students copy into their Homework book. The right hand board has the daily schedule, date, and working space.

The column of words on the right were made by my 3rd grade students about 18 months ago. They are words students and teachers can use to encourage each other when someone has done a good job.
The noise meter is still working well.
The white posters in the centre show how to use some templates that I keep on hand for when the children are working on posters or displays.

So that's the Grade 4K classroom. I hope you enjoyed having a look around. Be sure to come back soon and find out what's happening in Grade 4K.

Ready, set ...

This time tomorrow the first day will be over! Am I ready? Well, as much as I'm going to be. I do have a plan for tomorrow, which is a good thing. Hopefully it's a realistic plan, although better to overplan than underplan I say, especially where kids are concerned. If you have a plan, you can always diverge from it. If you have no plan at all, then you set yourself up for failure. The key to having a plan is to be sure it's flexible. Yep, you heard me correctly! The plan has to be flexible. There are so many variables on the first day of school, not the least of which is the children. With 23 children in my class for day one it's going to be a very full classroom. It will be really important that we have homes for everything, and that everything is returned to its home as soon as we finish with it. So check back tomorrow, or in a few days to see how that first day of school went, and whether we stuck to the plan or were flexible or both!

Work in progress.

Back here I promised to take some before and after photos of work in progress in the classroom, and I did. These were taken the next day. The finished product photos were taken today (10/9) and you'll find them on a later post.

Looking straight ahead as you walk in the door.

The rest of the room. Notice the wide open windows. We are not allowed to have A/C on unless the children are in the classroom. Fans help a bit, and if there's a breeze that's good too (although sometimes both create more problems than they solve by blowing things around) but it was a long hot week.

Mr Dy's corner

Classroom library is just about done.

The overflow of the classroom library.

Something to think about ...

Tonight, as I was enjoying some Facebook time and catching up on blogs that I follow, I was delighted by this post. Please take a moment to read her post before you continue reading this one.

As I read Kara's reflections, it prompted me to think about the children I will be teaching this year. Each child who will come into my class this year is unique. He or she will bring his or her own special qualities, gifts, and needs. Each one has been placed in my classroom for a reason. I do not know what that reason is, but I do know that God will show me during the course of the year.

Teaching is a privilege and a huge responsibility. It was said today, that in Cambodian culture teachers are seen as just as important to children as parents, and at times even seen as "second parents". What a trust is placed on us.

As I start this year, I pray that God will lead me to know how He wants me to meet the individual needs of the children in my care. I pray that I will be open to His leading and guidance. I pray that I will be sensitive to their needs. I pray all this knowing that as I endeavour to lead and teach the children I will also be learning. I learn so much from the children in my care. I thank God for the privilege of serving Him and them in this way.

I also thank Him for those who pray for me! This is not a job I can tackle in my own strength. No way! It is His task, and I seek His strength, enabling, and patience to do the very best job that I can do, in His strength. I pray too that they will see Him in me.

First day back ... for teachers

I've been back in Cambodia for just over a week, and today was the first official day back at school for teachers. It was great to be back. There were lots of new faces, especially among the secondary staff, and it's looking like being a great year.

We all met in the hall, and it was time for the round of introductions, then a break to meet individual, then time for some sharing by the principal about the history and establishment of the school.

After that it was off to the classrooms! I did get most of my furniture moved one day last week, and had started unpacking stuff, but then managed to get sick, so it had pretty much stalled at the stage of the photos below.

 

Today, with the capable help of my trusty assistant Choundy (Mr Dy), much more progress was made. All the boxes are emptied, and quite a bit of stuff got put away. In between there was much sharing of information with new colleagues and a little planning going on. I'll take some before and after shots tomorrow, and let's hope it looks a lot more like a classroom by the end of the day tomorrow.

 

Now it's almost time for bed, since I havea meeting with my fellow 4th grade teacher tomorrow morning to finalise our lists of school supplies to be ordered before the whole of school meeting in the hall at 9am. Looking forward to another fun day of getting ready, and to meeting all my new students next week!

The Box - the end of the story

A quick update on the story of "The Box".

As I mentioned in my last post, I needed to empty the box once it was moved to see just how much damage had been done, to rectify what I could, and then repack. So that's what I did. The first stage was to completely empty the container, identifying as we did boxes which were ant infested or likely to need repacking due to mould or moisture. Unfortunately we found a heap of ants had found their way into the box (no doubt trying to escape the damp weather we had over the last two years) so there was quite a bit of cleaning and repacking to do as well as mould to be cleaned away.

Most of the stuff stacked on a tarp to air.

Another view of the same stuff.

The rest of the stuff.

 We covered both heaps of stuff with tarps overnight as the whole job took about three days. Too much stuff to deal with all the ants and mould and stuff in just one day. Before closing the box overnight we also painted with endrust the metal strip down the centre of the box on the floor, and then sprayed it thoroughly with indoor/outdoor insect spray. The next morning it was opened up to air thoroughly before we started packing. The next step was to hang a number of objects from the sides. This served a dual purpose of saving floor space and also creating some air space around the inside of the container.

Yes, I'll have a bed to sleep on when I eventually return down under!

 After that it was sort, put shelves in, fill the shelves, pack, clean, sort and put more stuff away.

Somethings have to be accessible, like the file cabinet. Note the mattresses now suspended from the ceiling as well. Hopefully this will both provide some insulation and allow air to more around them.

What remained about the time I took the photo above. Covered it up and finished the job the next day.

Done! The guardians of "The Box". The gentleman in this photo did a huge amount of work in helping me move, unpack and repack the box (along with another very helpful gent).

So it is now to be hoped that I will have little need to trouble "The Box" apart from occasionally filing of paperwork. I certainly don't intend getting anything else out of it. A huge thanks to those who helped me, and to the wonderful couple who just happen to have space on their block of land to safely house the shipping container. God is good!

When a holiday is not a holiday ...

... when the shipping container full of your Aussie household goods (and precious books) is going mouldy and has to be relocated, emptied, cleaned, bug sprayed, and then repacked! Doesn't sound like much of a holiday to me either, but that's what I'm up to this week. Last week I did a little sorting, and Monday I did a bit more, but today was the big day.

I arose at the most unreasonable hour of six o'clock this morning. Yes, I know many people rise at that time or earlier every day, but I'm on holidays and besides which it was freezing cold. How do I know, because when I went out to the car at about 6.30am there was a layer of ice on it. I actually had to pour water over the windscreen several times to get it clear. Brrrrr! That dealt with I was on my way.

On arrival I moved a few things out, and a few move down from higher positions then closed it up again. Here's the story in pictures.

The box. Note how we've had to dig out the front right corner so we could open the doors.

Rear view after the box next door has been moved. See how the base is almost buried.

The very excellent crane that did the job.

Digging out the corners to get the points where the chains are fixed onto the shipping container.

Checking the chains with slight tension just before the lift.

Off the ground!

Repositioning

In the new location. Notice the bare ground where the containers had been resting.
With the drought broken, they had sunk into the ground quite a way.

Getting the big stumps in place to hold it off the ground. With air able to circulate more freely and any run off able to get away we're hoping that mould growth will be a thing of the past.

Done!

Once it was moved, the next job was to empty it and find out just how much damage there was. Actually, it was surprisingly little, although we did find a few redbacks and quite a number of ants nesting inside some of the boxes. Some cardboard boxes need to be replaced, and there's quite a bit of mould on some of the furniture but all in all, considering I was anticipating a 6 months absence when I first packed stuff up it's in pretty good shape.

Tomorrow is going to be another big day, with the cleaning, sorting and repacking needing to be finished by 2.45pm so I can get on with my AustSwim supervised experience. I guess there's no doubt that I won't be bored tomorrow!